Student launches belgbook.be to bypass Facebook restrictions

Thanks to the www.belgbook.be website, web surfers who are not on Facebook can now see the public pages of the popular social network.

It was set up by a student from Alost (Eastern Flanders) who wanted to bypass certain restrictions in how people can use Facebook, which were implemented following a legal dispute with Belgian authorities.

“These restrictions were a problem for small businesses,” explains the “ethical pirate” Inti De Ceukelaire. “They use their public page as an official website.”

Students from the Erasmus Academy managed to bypass the restrictions by creating the belgbook.be website. “Facebook did not implement very strict restrictions, they only blocked access to the main page, not to pictures and videos. We set up an option to avoid being tracked, allowing people to use Facebook anonymously."

At least 166 Walloon communes were affected by an exceptional drought between 1 May and 1 August, according to data from the Royal Meteorological Institute (IRM), Wallonia’s Minister of Agriculture, René Collin, disclosed on Monday.